NSW earn Overall Champions Trophy from Aus Sides Champs

NSW women with their silverware from the 2018 Australian Sides Championships

NSW stunningly claimed the Overall Champions Trophy of the 2018 Australian Sides Championships after toppling Victoria in both men’s and women’s contests.

The Blues upstaged the undefeated Victorian men’s team in the final round, and while it took none of the shine off the Big V’s Alley Shield victory – after they wrapped up those honours with an unassailable lead with a game to spare – it did allow the NSW team to surge to second on the standings and secure a silver medal.

Victoria claimed the men’s Alley Shield honour a game clear of NSW, with Tasmania finishing in third spot ahead of Queensland; with those two teams splitting their seventh round encounter to allow NSW to leap-frog to second spot.

It was the Big V’s tenth title win, and second in three years, which puts them nine wins off NSW’s record.

New South Wales celebrate their result at the @018 Aust Sides.

The final rubber win for NSW also confirmed the Blues’ Matthew Pietersen, Corey Wedlock, Aaron Teys and Aaron Wilson as the best-performed rink throughout the seven rounds, 20 shots better than their closest competitor also on six wins.

The final round was somewhat of a formality for the women’s Marj Morris Trophy contest, which NSW had already secured regardless of any last round result against Victoria, and the Victoria were guaranteed a silver medal.

However, it did impact upon the Overall Champions Trophy standing, and the best-performed rink honours in the women’s competition as well.

NSW claimed the coveted overall honours one game clear of Victoria, after the Blues stunned the untarnished Big V men, as well as the second-placed women.

The Blues have now secured the Overall Champions Trophy six times since its inception in 2008, two clear of Queensland.

Jamie-Lee Worsnop, Liz Baker, Ellen Ryan and Karen Murphy were confirmed as the best-performed women’s team with a faultless performance from seven starts – half a game and one full game clear of her fellow NSW teammates.

New South Wales’s Karen Murphy was in top form at this year’s Aus sides.